Pathfinder 1E Pathfinder BETA - Some Sizzle, Not Much Steak

[Remathilis]

I am a bit perplexed about how one would go about killing a few rooms in a fortress or complex and then taking 8 hours or so to rest and repeating this. Is the DM giving the players a break and not having the monsters/patrols/evil overlord notice the screams and deaths and fireballs and flying monkeys?

Well, if the intention was to TPK my group as they slept, I could.

 

[MrGrenadine]

It's more that a 3.5 Rogue isn't playing the same game as the others. Sure, every trap is his to disarm, but when the undead pop up, he might as well go have a smoke, 'cause he's just a sack of hp.

I'm currently playing a 3.5 rogue, and have played plenty others in my day, and as already noted, there's a lot more to being a rogue than just trapfinding and sneak attack damage. No offense, but your assumption of a narrow role is probably affecting your ability to see other possibilities.

Also, if you're a rogue, and you're about to wander into a den of undead, don't forget to bring along a light mace of disruption. Does wonders.

 

[Urza]

Almost nothing on my "what needs to be fixed in 3ed list" has been addressed. This includes, but not limited to, multiclassed spellcasters, the 15-minute adventuring day, and high-level play.

You failed to notice that beta still doesn't have multiclass rules.
You failed to actually play the game to realize 15-minute adventuring day is more like 30-45 minutes because of the new options.
You failed to mention your problem with high level play? Save or Die is gone. Casting spells against monsters with Saves that are too high will be fixed with the Monster Book.

I know Paizo has said they would still like to address some of these issues (even Lisa the CEO has made her feelings about high-level play known!) but to me, these things should have been addressed from the very start. They should have been the priority.

Then you should be posting on a forum that matters. Sorry Enworld, but you don't matter in the realm of Pathfinder development. Post where it matters. Paizo boards.

In the software world, Beta, heck even Alpha, assumes all the major features you are introducing are already developed and are at least stable enough to use and test. Alpha is for testing and bug fixes. When the build gets to Beta, it is essentially a release candidate, meaning it's ready for prime-time assuming nothing catastrophic is found at the last minute.

Actually Alpha is always unfinished and expected to crash. Beta is mostly finished and hoping to find new crashes. But what do I know.

In the development process, you prioritize your workload and feature list first. I feel Paizo (although ultimately, this is probably Jason Bulmahn) had their priorities backwards from the start. Revising the classes and races, for example, is the easy stuff but it doesn't addressed the core mechanics. It doesn't change the way the game is played, which I feel, is what 3ed needs.

If you change the way the game is played then it's not 3e, it's 4e edition. It's not compatible with existing products, and it's not a game people want to sink their money into.

From what I've seen, the design philosophy for Pathfinder has been "more, more, more!"

Actually the design philosophy for the classes was, "how can we make people not look to multiclass after X-level." Because that's what a lot of people do, is multiclass after X-level. How many people take a wizard past level 7-10? Not many.. you can still get all the wizard spells and get abilities if you prestige class.

There's a lot of nice, new, shiny crunch in Pathfinder but I find that I'm asking myself if it's really what I need. I have bookshelves full of class variants and I have my own. Is this really what I need Pathfinder to deliver? Unfortunately, the answer is a resounding "no".

Maybe if the classes were solid from the start you wouldn't be looking for variants.

What I do need are developers willing to look at the core of 3ed and fix it. I need developers to fix the things that I don't have the time to do myself. I don't need developers to spend their time further bloating an already heavily patch-worked system.

You still don't say what your problems with the core is.

Along with the lack of addressing core issues and the massive amounts of new crunch, what I find most annoying is some of the things they did change didn't need to be changed at all. This further supports my feeling that the design goal at the start wasn't clear or well-defined.

You still haven't stated what these "core" issues are.

Just to illustrate my point, take something as small as the Cleave feat. Did it really need to be changed. If you were to go about revising the 3ed ruleset, would you even think twice about feats like Cleave, or Great Cleave, or Combat Expertise? I think Mr. Bulmahn should have had a plaque made and hung it above his desk that said "if it ain't broke, don't fix it".

I think it did. Cleave is something you can use every turn now. As for combat expertise, yes it needed to be change. It's funny that you only need a +1 in Intelligence to gain a +5 in another stat.

To take this one step further, did the barbarian need rage points? The barbarian, to me, was one of the most well-designed classes already. The mechanic might be sound but truely ask yourself, is this change needed.

It needed something. The rage points work into a number of things. For starters the barbarian got all it's rage feats from the complete books as abilities now. But if you're going to be using them in combat, you're going to be running out of rage really fast. Suddenly the party isn't hitting a 15 minute day because of the Cleric or Wizard in the party, it's because the barbarian is out of daily rages. Whether you like it or not, understand it or not, the barbarian needed more rage resources to keep up with the fix spellcasters got to not run out of spells so quickly.

Perhaps some of my disappointment stems from the fact that I hold Paizo to such a high standard. I think they one of, if not the best, RPG publishers in the business right now. I want them to succeed. Which is why my enthusiasm for Pathfinder has waned the more and more I've seen in each release. I want Paizo to step up and create a memorable and lasting 3ed ruleset and truly improve the very core of the game. Superficial changes won't do that.

Yeah it's much easier to post criticism on a forum for a website that decidingly pro-4e then it is to get involved in the proper place and voice your concerns and push for change. But that's what the alpha was about, getting the rules in a shape that we'd like, beta's going to be about breaking it. Sorry you were busy here on Enworld instead of Paizo.Com.

 

[Wisdom Penalty]

Urza, Urza, Urza...your post is everything that's wrong about the internet.

 

[Henry]

I'm currently playing a 3.5 rogue, and have played plenty others in my day, and as already noted, there's a lot more to being a rogue than just trapfinding and sneak attack damage. No offense, but your assumption of a narrow role is probably affecting your ability to see other possibilities.

Also, if you're a rogue, and you're about to wander into a den of undead, don't forget to bring along a light mace of disruption. Does wonders.

Doesn't that thing have a save DC of like 13 or 14, meaning most undead of mid-level or higher are only going to fail on a 1? So, generally, 1 out of 20 successful hits?

I'm curious to routes various players have taken -- what are some of the ways, besides tanglefoot bags and alchem. fire, that rogues have been able to stay combat-useful when the wights, vampires, etc. show up?

 

[Riposte]

Pathfinder + E6 = smells like victory.

But to actually contribute... I've been thinking on how they could make 3e simpler to the point of being more enjoyable and it almost always comes down to magic. It may be enjoyable, I think 3e magic system is what breaks it. I really like what 4e did with magic. With Iron Heroes what they did was add a new magic system, but allowed you old magic as normal. I think if they wanted to make a big change, but still be backwards compatible, that would be the way to go. Have a new magic system that allows to at least superficially mimic the current one and allow it to stand balanced against NPC and monsters using the old system.

From there it would be all about making this system easy to build on the fly for NPCs.

Alternatively they could include really easy conversion rules. Like 1-2 minutes per NPC tops.

 

[Moggthegob]

QFT. The complaint of 3E being the cause of the "15 minute workday" is one of the biggest red herrings I've seen over this past year.

I agree, and if anyone thinks that 4e is immune to the "15 minute workday" they're out of their mind. Players playing badly will always cause this.
I was playing in a game at my 2nd FLGS and after exactly one encounter, the rest of the group wanted to rest and get their daily powers back.

Trust me, 3 years from now, there will be thousands of threads dedicated to the 4e," 15 minutework day"

Back to Paizo, I have exactly no complaints about it. I accept it as a seperate game that I just so happen can easily convert 3.5 prestige classes and feats for. I love it, it's alot of fun and I have found that by simply adding anywhere between 5(at lower leverls) to 35 hit points to a 3.5 monster makes it about right. I plan on buying the softcover beta with my next paycheck and my gaming group is never going back.

 

[Treebore]

Alternatively they could include really easy conversion rules. Like 1-2 minutes per NPC tops.

F5rom what I read in the back of the Beta PDF I can do most conversion in 30 to 45 seconds, and write it on the NPC or monster sheets. Then again I am good with numbers.

 

[Moggthegob]

Pathfinder + E6 = smells like victory.

But to actually contribute... I've been thinking on how they could make 3e simpler to the point of being more enjoyable and it almost always comes down to magic. It may be enjoyable, I think 3e magic system is what breaks it. I really like what 4e did with magic. With Iron Heroes what they did was add a new magic system, but allowed you old magic as normal. I think if they wanted to make a big change, but still be backwards compatible, that would be the way to go. Have a new magic system that allows to at least superficially mimic the current one and allow it to stand balanced against NPC and monsters using the old system.

From there it would be all about making this system easy to build on the fly for NPCs.

Alternatively they could include really easy conversion rules. Like 1-2 minutes per NPC tops.

I wanted to show a friend of mine E6, but I forgot where to find it, where can I find the rule changes involved.

 

[Moggthegob]

Not to bash 4E, but in my opinion it is moving further and further away from "realistic simulation" and just closer to being a "game".

Soon arrows will be limitless as well.

People are terrified of "One shot one kill" spells, so those are gone. So it makes sense that they would also demand that they be able to have 10 encounters per day, have 25 HP at first level, etc...

Too few want there to be any sense of real risk or challenge, they just want to kill things and take their stuff, without sweating "survival".

I mean who wants to play a game where a character they have spent hours and hours playing dies? Thats too much like someone living to being 25 and being shot and killed on the street corner. A waste of precious time/life.

So put up the padded walls, pad the rocks, and ground, put on life jackets, and load up on the rubber arrows and bolts, and switch to wooden swords.

Challenge is now an illusion. Hardly anyone dies now. Now PC deaths are only by accident.

Treebore, FTW.

I couldn't agree more with the drive to make DnD more survivable. It's supposed to be tough. You arent supposed to be able to just beat anything that comes your way, you have to outsmart them, use tactics. I cannot count the number of times a group had a helluva time with an encounter they could have easily reasoned themselves through.

Video games have caused people wanting things a certain way. But that's not what tabletop gaming is about.